Video Games and Afternoon Coffee
by violonforte
Summary: Gilbert and Roderich spend a lazy afternoon playing video games and having afternoon coffee and cake. Domestic drabble, PWP, PruAus.


**Disclaimer**: I don't own APH: Hetalia, its characters, or the cover picture.

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Gilbert poked his head inside Roderich's office and knocked softly on the door frame. "Little Master? It's three o'clock!" he announced.

A small smile graced Roderich's lips. "Oh, I see. I shall be with you shortly." Gilbert left as Roderich stood from his synthesizer and started turning his machines and gadgets off.

Roderich was a composer for Disney. He'd just finished on the musical score for a project the day before and opted to celebrate that day by playing around. He got his USB from the computer and proceeded to follow Gilbert.

Gilbert, on the other hand, was a video game programmer for Nintendo. He wasn't always one, though. He used to be an animator in Disney, which was actually how he and Roderich had met. Likewise, Roderich wasn't a composer; not yet as a recognized professional, anyway. Roderich was the resident all-around instrumentalist, in a way, and Gilbert found this a strange mix of demeaning and enticing. Demeaning because Roderich obviously had more talent than the company gave him credit for, and enticing because it was so damn sexy seeing him playing different things.

Gilbert turned around with a smile as he heard Roderich enter the game room. "Hey, Little Master! What do you feel like playing today?"

Roderich sighed as he sat down on the couch. "You know the answer to that, Gilbert. Anything you like."

They had an almost daily routine, provided neither of them was too busy to partake in it. At three o'clock, Gilbert would fetch Roderich from his music office, so they could play some video games together for an hour. At four o'clock, they would turn off all their gadgets, turn their attention to coffee and cake, and just relax around the presence of the other. Sometimes they read, other times they talked. Roderich often brought some of his compositions or those of his idols for them to listen to; sometimes Gilbert brought his own play list. Gilbert often teased Roderich for this ancient, aristocratic habit of having afternoon coffee, which was the reason why he was successfully able to make him join his afternoon video game spree. He would never admit out loud, though, that those peaceful times at coffee together were his favorite of the day.

But Roderich knew that anyway.

Gilbert flipped through their collection of games. "You really should pick something one day, old man. We've been playing these long enough for you to have developed a liking for at least one of them!"

Roderich rolled his eyes indulgently. "And if that happens, it will become such a habit for me that you will bore of it easily! Remember, when I like something, I stick to it. And you never allow that with your games."

Gilbert made a noncommittal sound and reached for another case of games. Finding nothing that particularly interested him, he stood and went off to his office.

Like Roderich, Gilbert had his office in the house. Whereas Roderich's office contained various instruments, recording devices, music sheets, and musical software, Gilbert's office contained game models, design drafts, various consoles, and programming software. The game room doubled as an extension of his office when he needed to test out some games, and so most of his things tended to be scattered between these two rooms.

Gilbert brought a still unopened box from the office into the game room. Roderich raised an eyebrow. "If you wanted and already have new games, you didn't have to make a show of going through your old files," he said, looking over Gilbert's shoulder as the other opened the box.

"Eh, I was rather hoping you'd have found _something_ in there to sustain your interest… Oh, what's this?" Gilbert ran off to install a CD into the console before Roderich got a chance to view the title. Instead of asking, however, knowing from experience that Gilbert won't answer him, Roderich waited for the console to show him Gilbert's chosen game.

Roderich noticed Gilbert openly staring at him and immediately felt a sinking feeling in this stomach. Foregoing his previous notion of patience, Roderich dared to ask Gilbert what game he had chosen. Gilbert's smirk confirmed his suspicion.

"Gilbert, no. You are not going to make me dance again!"

"Aw, why not, Specs? Don't be a priss, you're an awesome dancer! 'Sides, none of these songs are even _that_ trashy."

"That's not the point, Gilbert. The point is that the songs themselves _are_."

It was Gilbert's turn to roll his eyes. "How _ever_ in the world did you manage to get a position in Disney if you're this adamant about today's sucky music?"

"Gilbert, please. I don't feel like moving much today."

"Then _choose_ something!"

Ah. So that was it.

Recognizing Gilbert's victory with a playful eye roll, Roderich heaved a big sigh and shuffled through the box. Absently, he heard the game complete its installment and Gilbert running through the song list. Curiosity getting the better of him, Roderich looked up, eyes likewise scanning through the song list.

"Hey, Gil, they have _Les Mis_!" he said amusedly.

"Oh yeah!" Gilbert replied, scrunching his eyebrows. "How do you dance to that?"

"Let's find out."

Gilbert gave him a lopsided smile as he entered the song. They spent a good portion of the hour dancing whatever caught their interest, with one trying to make the other as miserable as possible, ending in several bouts of laughing fits on Gilbert's side, and huffs of annoyance from Roderich. Gilbert pinched Roderich's cheeks during one of his tirades about the impropriety of _Wrecking Ball_ and its twerking movements, commenting on how he found the image of Roderich twerking to him as "extremely hot." Roderich blushed a fiery red, hit him upside on the head, and retorted with a haughty "I am not here for _your_ entertainment, Mister Beilschmidt. That's what your games are for." In the end, Roderich sat it out while Gilbert danced – which was a bad idea because the both of them ended up quite horny when Gilbert decided to improvise and started dancing on Roderich's lap instead.

Roderich pushed Gilbert away (reluctantly, but he will not admit that) from their impromptu make-out session. "It's four o'clock," he announced with a small smile, eyes glittering.

Gilbert wrapped his arms tighter around Roderich's waist, hands moving up and down his back. "I'm sure a few minutes could wait," he said, closing the distance between their lips once more. Roderich obliged him until he felt his nerves calm down sufficiently and broke the kiss. "Time's up," he announced, getting up and heading to the kitchen.

Gilbert stretched and turned off the TV and console, following Roderich into the kitchen. Roderich put on a pot of coffee to stew as Gilbert brought out the cake that Roderich had baked earlier that week, promptly placing a forkful in his mouth, and obtaining a pointed look from Roderich. Gilbert winked at him and cut two slices of cake, which he transferred to little plates. He also prepared two glasses of water as Roderich completed the finishing touches of their Einspänner. All these items were then arranged on a tray and brought to the parlor.

Gilbert placed the tray down on the coffee table and set it up as Roderich went off to plug his USB into their stereo. They both settled down to the view of the garden and the rich colors of the late afternoon sun. A few sips of the Einspänner effectively calmed them down enough for Gilbert to spend a few precious quiet moments in his seat.

Gilbert was never one for silence though. Soon, he was recounting jokes to Roderich or passing on random trivia he'd learned from work. When the track changed, however, he stopped his train of thought entirely and asked, "Is this one of your new songs, Little Master?"

"No, it hardly deserves to be called a song. I was just playing around earlier, to celebrate finishing the month's project ahead of time."

"It's pretty good. So what's your next agenda?"

"As of now, I'm pretty free. I was hoping I could make a concerto or something, but that's not really expected from composers of movie scores. John Williams and Hans Zimmer never made those, anyway, but they were still able to create beautiful instrumental music. Maybe I should just take my cue from them."

Gilbert mulled this over. "Hey, why don't I propose that we make a game about classical music? Then let's insert your concerto into it."

"No, Gilbert, but I thank you for the offer. People will easily grow weary of that topic, and a proper concerto is rarely less than 20 minutes long, which is too long for a video gamer to not do anything in his or her game. Besides, I would like the concerto to be given the spotlight it deserves – not just be some background music that people happen to like."

"Maybe someday they can make another movie like _August Rush_, then. You know, that little kid composer? Then you could give yours. It's pretty amazing on-screen."

"Maybe," Roderich shrugged, taking a bite of his cake. "That someone has to make a new plot line, though, for the script to be considered interesting enough to be made into a movie."

"Yeah," Gilbert agreed. "Might be hard for that to happen. But what do you know, maybe Disney will give you a break and some of your music buddies will be glad to play some real, live music in a concert one day. You never know till you try."

"Your confidence in me is very flattering, Gilbert."

"We both know it's true, anyway. You've made your name in the industry already."

A few minutes of silence came over them as they allowed Roderich's music and the afternoon light to wash them. Gilbert, his coffee and cake now finished, stretched his arm around Roderich's shoulders. Nibbling quietly on his cake, Roderich rested his head on the other, as they listened to the music and the birds and watched the leaves in the garden dance with the wind.

Gilbert soon found himself with a sleeping musician under his arm, cake still half-uneaten. He placed the cake back on the coffee table and stroked the other's hair with his free hand. Later, he, too, drifted off to sleep.

Later that evening, as Gilbert and Roderich went around the kitchen to prepare their dinner, Roderich found a white envelope with their names written on it with what looked suspiciously like Elizaveta's cursive. Roderich opened the envelope, revealing a lone picture. He took it out, and a soft smile graced his lips.

"Hey, Princess, what's that?" Gilbert called out.

Roderich started. "Oh, nothing, just us in the parlor this afternoon. Eliza really has a talent with photography." Roderich handed the picture to Gilbert who scrutinized it.

"The hell, Specs. Does she still have a key here?" he asked, scowling.

Roderich thought about it. "Didn't you change the locks when you moved in? Besides, if you look at it closely, the picture's taken from the gardens."

Gilbert still looked unconvinced - how _did_ she get into the kitchen, then? - so Roderich plucked the photo from his hands, pocketed it for safe keeping, and cupped the albino's cheeks. "_Ich liebe dich,_ Gilbert. More than anything I've ever known."

Gilbert smiled at him. "_Ich liebe dich auch_, Roderich." He gave the other a quick peck on the lips and returned to the counter. "But tell Eliza we don't need a personal photographer all the time, okay?"

Roderich chuckled and went to his office. There, he procured an empty picture frame, inserted the photograph, and placed it right beside his computer monitor. He ran a finger along the edges and thought of how wonderfully that afternoon went.

"Hey, Little Master! You eating or not?" Gilbert called from the dining room.

Roderich sighed, giving the photograph a last cursory glance. Although Gilbert may not appreciate snapshots of their life together, he certainly did. He would have to write a thank you to Eliza later on, with some well-wishes to her own relationship with her Romanian not-quite-friend-but-not-quite-enemy.

He went to join Gilbert at the dinner table, wondering how the rest of their night would turn out.

_(It would be quite passionate, if Gilbert's crushing kiss before he allowed the other to sit was any indication.)_


End file.
